Monuments of architecture and creators of the transcendence - Doomsday Structures (Part 1)

(All Images from nyurbanism.com.  All credit)

As discussed at the beginning of this series, we looked at the transending of time with structures and of course the best example of this, which remains to this day, are the great pyramids of Giza, built to honor the Pharaohs as they, to the ancient Egyptians believed, would transcend them into the next life. Structure built in a conscious manner the durability, akin to nature, that despite our impact on the natural systems, it will outlive us all.  So, there is a study of what aesthetics of architecture entails, from brutalism structures that evolved as a template for design after the years of World War Two mixed with mid century hope and technological wonder - that became 1950s modernism, which we now know gave rise in an idealism of the nuclear family.  And you can understand why there was a sought after desire for stability in design when the war ended, as most major European cities, particularly Berlin, were reduced to rubble after that global conflict.  America boomed and set a precendence in rebuilding Europe, yet even with newer technologies, for which nuclear energy gave a purpose to the 'new' family unit.  What remained within the landscapes of these wartorn countries, in their twisted shapes and arrays.  With their exposed reinforced steel after bombardment and extreme violence, was the bunkers, the layers of concrete, set within a high density steel framework.  Built to withstand the bombs and weaponry that would destroy conventional buildings.  Except, when architecture started to experiment, in earnest, with Brutalism after World War Two, it was, even though it resonated a feeling of protection and longevity - was eventually surpassed by modenist and postmodernism design.  By its development going into the 60s as a cold war fixture, Brutalism declined in the 80s, as it was by all retrospection seen purely as a trend in architectural design.  Not a statement of post global conflict or cold war sentiment.  Yet, there is something else, a darker undercurrent in its reflection of the structural encasememt, whilst at the same time, an innocence.  If seen in other dynamics of human psychology that for some, it may not be just escape from the cities and everyday interactions - that may or may not hearld a feeling of safety from calamity, but also a necessity and desire of insulation within a enclosed space, that we can claim as our own.  The post cold war bunker holds such an appeal.  To live away not just from a society, but exsist in a world within a world.  Is this a Doomsday idealism or something else?  Of course we look at the sociological and as mentioned the psychological factors that may develop in an individual, in their wishes to be disconnected from the wider populous.  But, there is also a documented, even though it may seem only displayed as a fictional concept, through books and movies, a reality; that Doomsday could be an inevitability.  

There is a fascination, that everybody has, when the end of the world may demesne.  Which is not just the paranoia of future events of a global catastrophe that also maynot transpire, but the possibility that it could occur, despite humanities best effort in modeling deterministic events.  The question is asked;  How do we prepare for something that has been confined to the psychology of fear and uncertainty?  That for some people can  be crippling through its anxiety, their inability to enjoy the moment.  A day, without a fear of the tomorrow.  But, what if, there is and has been prepartions for a Cataclymic event.  Beyond fiction, moves and literature, a structure built out of necessity, not for ego, fear or paranoia.  A structure designed specifically for Doomsday.

Such a building was designed and built, its sole purpose, to be, as mandated by its description brief “inhabited by machines”, a communication “nerve center”, if there was ever a nuclear attack on the city.  This building the AT&T telecommunications center at 33 Thomas Street, a windowless and monolithic structure set, ominously in the heart of Manhattan, New York City.  Would, by theory still function.  And it is at night, when we view the skyscrapers surrounding this brutalist structure, while they remain lit from their hundreds windows. 33 Thomas St encapsulates a dark resonance and in this darkness this building epitomizes, without any fictionally concept or imagination, a Doomsday motive.  To survive.